GENRO

GENRO established in 1987 by Koji Chiba, a stone seal engraving artist is famous for his beautiful "shiki no in (四季の印)" or Four Seasons Rubber Stamps.  Unlike most rubber stamps, he uses an acrylic block as a holding part for a rubber stamp in order to represents his roots as a stone seal engraver.  The design is first engraved on a stone and then the stamped imaged is used to make a mother rubber stamp.

Shiki no in series uses motif of something that presents a season.  Mr. Chiba is also known as a Japanese Haiku poet, a type of poetry that can be written on themes from love to nature with only 3 lines and 17 syllables.  And in Haiku, normally "kigo (季語)" or a word that express a season is used to indirectly tell the season of the haiku.  For example, one of the most famous haiku is "The old pond, A frog jumping in, The sound of the water" by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), and the kigo here is "a frog" which tells it is a spring.

As a specialist of words as a haiku poet, Mr. Chiba selects a motif for his design and hand engraves it.  He says, I wish your life remembered through our stamp's little seal impression to be beautiful.